Children's Health Children's Nutrition and Fitness

Obesity: A Childhood Epidemic

Author:

Cathy Nonas, MS, RD, C.D.E.

Saint Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center

Medically Reviewed On: April 30, 2001

For the first time in human history, the number of overweight people rivals the number of underweight people, according to a report from the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based research organization.

The real victims? Our children.
In the past 30 years alone, obesity in American children has more than doubled. The chronic health problems associated with obesity have been much reported in recent years, and for children, these problems are all the more profound. More children are being diagnosed with adult conditions such as sleep apnea, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol, and nearly half of these children will carry the burden of their weight into adulthood.
For some children, the causes of obesity are genetically linked, but for many others, the causes are environmental. Lifestyle changes can have a profound impact on this debilitating condition.

Move it around!
There is one rule-get your children moving! It's a parent's job to get the children to the parks and playgrounds and then join them in a game of ball or tag. Physical activity can be a great way to spend good time with your children, and although physical activity doesn't result in a great deal of weight loss, it is integral to weight maintenance, and helps reduce body fat.
Also, being active in small ways begets more activity. Although most parents do not have access to a comprehensive physical activity program for children, reducing television watching and increasing activity-including after-school sports, family outings, and babysitting or big-brother sports-can help increase their strength, endurance, and coordination.

To diet or not to diet
What we'd all like is for children to eat healthier, without feeling deprived or guilty. This means that your commitment to your own dietary health is a very important ingredient in successful change for your children.

A diet should be high in fiber and complex carbohydrates. Foods such as brown rice, vegetables, and a variety of fruits contain these complex carbohydrates. Your children may not like some of these foods at first, but it's often because they haven't had much exposure to them. Continue to serve them until your children begin to develop a taste for these foods and start to enjoy them. This is of course true for the whole family.

The biggest dietary change should be made in the area of sugar and fat. Ice cream, cookies, chips, muffins, whole milk, red meats, fried foods, fast foods, all tend to be high in fat. Add to this soda, lots of white breads (bagels, rolls, Italian breads, etc.) and fruit drinks with only ten percent juice, and much of what children consume consists of what we call "empty" calories-calories that contain a minimum of vitamins and other nutrients.

Unless your children are 100 percent or more overweight, the best overall diet strategy is to reduce fat and sugar, and hope that calories will be reduced enough to result in a slow but steady weight loss. I don't suggest that you be very restrictive, or that you feed your children radically different foods from those that you eat yourself. Doing so can be isolating, and be felt as punishment.

Instead, it's helpful if modest reductions are taken on by the entire family-such as serving fruit for dessert instead of cake, or vegetables lightly steamed instead of with gravy, or macaroni with tomato sauce instead of cheese. This way your children will be more accepting of dietary changes, as well as be more apt to achieve a permanent lifestyle change.